


Triptych

by farevenasdecidedtouse



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Dancing, Frottage, Intercrural Sex, Mostly Fluff, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 05:53:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15835092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/pseuds/farevenasdecidedtouse
Summary: Three scenes, three parts of a whole.





	1. Year I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginary_golux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/gifts).



That Csethiro’s instruction had enabled Maia to dance to the point where they might converse while dancing had become a point of pride. The phonograph she had borrowed from a friend of Vedero’s circle, set on the table next to a pot of early-blooming snowdrops and violets, had helped immeasurably with the imparting of rhythm and movement. That the volume of the music kept their voices somewhat muffled from any potential prying ears was a great benefit, allowing them to converse on sensitive matters far more frankly than Maia, at least, would otherwise have dared.

The particular sensitive matter that Maia had brought to light that moment, however, was one at which she might never have guessed. Her sheer surprise—perhaps foolish from one who considered herself as worldly as did Csethiro—happily did not cause her to tread on her betrothed’s foot, a cliché she was glad to avoid.

To her own surprise, her first cogent thought was _well, at the least it isn’t that damned opera singer._

Maia, all the while, had continued to speak, the tension in his arms and rigidly level ears the only indications of the terror he surely felt: “...As such we are both aware of the need for the utmost discretion and can only give you our collective word that no hint of our particular intimacy will ever reach the greater court, save in the rumors which I have no illusion do not already follow me in light of my ancestry and the circumstances of my upbringing, as well as that of my time with him in a professional capacity. If you feel this is insufficient—” a short breath “—he has compiled a list of undersecretaries with whom he worked under the auspices of the Lord Chancellor who might take his place as our personal—”

“Merciful goddesses, wilt allow me a single word before thou write’st off thine own happiness entirely?” She had not meant to shout as she drew back from the dance, still clasping his hand and shoulder, but Maia’s flinch told her she had failed entirely. She fought the urge to sigh in frustration, whether at him or herself she could not say. “Firstly, adding more subterfuge to such assignations instead of leaving them plausibly deniable is the last thing ought’st to do in such a circumstance. I would hope that anyone as versed in the secrets of the Untheileneise Court as thy… as Mer Aisava would know such a thing.”

Slowly, carefully, Maia’s eyes rose to meet hers. “But if the temptation were to be removed entirely… that is, for thee—”

“The fact that this marriage is what neither of us would have desired is no reason for us to be equally unhappy.” She realized how hard she was gripping his hand, his thick silver rings creating whorled impressions in the skin of her fingers, and loosened her grasp. “Come. Once more,” she directed, kicking the folds of her simple green skirt out of the way to move into the first figure once again. “Athmaza, the phonograph, if you please.”

As the longest and thinnest of her fiance’s four shadows stepped over to resume the music, Csethiro carefully studied Maia's face. “Little as I know of Mer Aisava,” she said, voice pitched low as the recorded waltz began once again, “I am willing to place my trust in him—in both of you—for however long he remains in thy favor. So long as there will be no difficulty in the consummation of our marriage.”

“It’s not like that!” Maia’s horrified expression struck Csethiro like a blow to the chest and she immediately regretted her words. “I… that is, prior to Mer Aisava such thoughts had never… we are assured that such flukes of desire occasionally occur even in those who...”

“No, forgive me. That was unfair of me.” Tentatively, Csethiro squeezed Maia’s upper arm. “For what it’s worth, it is entirely possible, if rare, to desire either sex. If art among those ranks I see no reason to deny thee a lover on such a count. To be quite frank, a lover incapable of confusing the succession seems preferable in some ways." She smiled wryly. "Though an I were to take a lover of mine own in later days, I would hope that thou wouldst extend me the same understanding and freedom.”

At this Maia did miss a step, though he recovered quickly. A variety of thoughts seemed to cross his mind before he settled on, “Hast none?”

Csethiro’s surprised peal of laughter rang loud over the rasp of viols trapped in wax. “Homely noble daughters most famed for being dutiful and intellectual rarely attract paramours in the broader court, no.”

“I have ever considered the broader court’s taste suspect,” Maia replied.

Csethiro felt her ears angle upward quite despite herself. “I've agreed already, needst hardly flatter me into compliance.”

"Hast been a party to my progress here since my coronation, hast heard me named 'half-tongue' by every courtier with ears and eyes, and think'st I have the command of flattery?" Maia's gaze met hers with sudden intensity and Csethiro abruptly realized how close they were standing. An unfamiliar surge of heat coursed through her. "Having come to know thee over these past months, thy grace and courage and intelligence, and, yes, thy beauty... even if neither of us, as thou say'st, might have desired this to begin with, I am nonetheless willing to give happiness with thee a good-faith attempt."

“And I,” Csethiro said, “with thee.” She swallowed hard, pulse suddenly loud in her ears. “Many husbands, emperor or no, would never deign to speak of an established lover to a betrothed. Let alone offer to give up that lover for the sake of their marriage.”

Maia’s ears twitched, slate-hued cheeks growing a shade darker at even such faint praise. “I owe thee no less, as husband or emperor.”

She was unsure when they had stopped dancing, but as she reached up to press her mouth to his, the music seemed to fade along with the rest of the room. His lips were softer than she had imagined, breath touching her face with a surprised whuff like a horse before the hand on her waist reached up to cup the back of her head. As with everything, he put his all into the first kiss of surely many, gentle and eager and ready, until Csethiro felt a tiny spark of hope bloom within her heart, tentative as a snowdrop bud.


	2. Year XIV

In his lover’s arms Maia allowed himself to fall into rhythms practiced over near half a lifetime now. His unspoken urging for Csevet to kiss-suck dark bruises along the base of his neck, to whisper _beautiful, beloved, let me please thee_ , to twine denuded fingers tightly in the thick mass of Maia’s hair, seemed to sound in both their ears as avid as ever Maia had begged in words. The moonlight sifting through the windows of the Imperial summer lodge at Avalee made Csevet seem to glow like a star, the pale fingers that traced their familiar paths over Maia's jaw, calves, hips, and still more intimate places apt to leave glimmering streams of light in their wake.

Csethiro arrived as the two of them lay naked and tangled in each other, Maia half-swooning in Csevet’s arms for the desire denied them so long by the claustrophobic Untheileneise Court with its workaday obligations and ever-watching eyes. Hair damp, body wrapped in a purple robe embroidered with cranes, she paused for a moment, ears pricking at the sight, she smiled and drew near to readjust the screens surrounding the bed upon noticing Maia watching her watching them. Drawing close, she encircled Maia in her arms, lips meeting his to provoke a longing sigh from Csevet. “Let me watch you,” she murmured.

“As my zhasan commands,” Csevet murmured, dipping low with a grace befitting any born courtier to flick his tongue over Maia’s nipples, the hollow of his throat, each quivering ear. The teasing lightness left Maia more frantic still, breath fluttering like his pulse as Csethiro reached down to silence his already kiss-darkened lips with hers.

“Lusty creature,” she crooned, nails raking Maia’s scalp hard enough to make him shudder like the leaf-shadows against the windowpane. “I fancy an we were to enjoy thee the night long, wouldst be as ready and eager as wert in thy twentieth year when we might make thee spend thrice in succession. Wouldst care for us to try thee?”

It was easy to put the thoughts of the correspondences and ledgers that still awaited him, of Chenelo, Mara, and Idro slumbering at the end of the wood-paneled corridor, from his mind at her words. Easier still to urgently return her kiss as Csevet worked his avid mouth down the shadow-dark length of his chest, lips still teasingly feather-light on his heated skin. “We have the length of the night,” he said, “and I beg thee to make use of it. Both of you.”

Csethiro's fingers, still buried in the dark ropes of his hair and toying steadily more mercilessly with the tapering lengths of his ears, drew from him the breathless gasps and whimpers he could at last give voice to in the still peace of the Thu-Athamareise countryside. The possibilities left him as breathless as did his lovers' attentions and he reveled as Csevet's palm brushed the length of his shaft, as Csethiro's fingers drifted to tease his jewel-dark nipples. Their hands met over his chest, and Maia's breath caught in his throat. Though Csevet had only dared to enter her twice, both time near Idro's birth, both times were burned into Maia's mind like the afterimage of a flame, (and were often put to use on long spates away from them both) the sight of them even touching never staled for Maia. Behind him, Csethiro urged him wordlessly into a sitting position in Csevet's lap, murmuring with approval as Csevet drew forward to encircle his and Maia’s cocks in his hand.

Over Csevet's hand, Csethiro placed hers, and Maia could not help but whimper softly at the sight. The luxury of a mind blanked entirely by the delicious pressure of their hands and of Csevet's thick, burning-hot shaft against his own was easy to allow himself, the only tension that building like a burgeoning fire in his loins. Each velvet-soft press of Csevet's tongue against his own, each gentle drag of Csethiro's teeth along the oversensitized tips of his ears, were enough to render him as feverish with desire as the love- and touch-starved youth he had once been. Desperately eager, he thrust into the combined grasp of wife and lover only to be rewarded by a soft moan of pleasure from Csevet and a renewed intensity of his lips on Maia's, tongue flicking over the soft fullness of Maia's bottom lip.

Against the cleft of his buttocks Maia could feel the wet, eager heat of Csethiro's sex even as she focused her attentions on him with no mind to her own pleasure. He reached around with the hand not bracing himself on the bed to slide his fingers under, then inside her, provoking a shiver as she began to ride his fingers with slow, deliberate eagerness. For a moment, Maia lay helplessly pinned between them, suspended even now on the knife's edge of crisis. The sweet torment waxed and waned like the moon outside the window as Csevet's smooth, capable hands worked their shafts, as Csethiro's thrusts down upon his fingers became the more desperate before a cramp in his wrist made him pull back. "Forgive me - the angle - " he explained.

"Turn thyself," Csethiro instructed. Sitting back onto her heels in a tableau of skewed braids and lust-bright eyes, she eagerly watched as Maia pivoted in Csevet's arms until his back lay against Csevet's chest. Before him, the weight of his cock pressed against Csevet's, and he grasped Csevet's hand with a small gasp as Csevet began to thrust upward, rose-hued cock brushing against Maia's balls with every stroke.

"Art able to have me in thee?" Maia asked, reaching out to take Csethiro's hands with a gesture toward the crux of her legs. _Hast given us three children, including an acknowledged heir,_ he had told her a year following Idro's birth, _and I will not press upon thee more if dost not will it. If this means forgoing certain pleasures, 'tis a forfeit I will happily give._ Obviously relieved, she had gladly accepted Maia's offer, and now reckoned her womb's readiness on a small, beaded bracelet provided her by Kiru Athmaza.

Csethiro shook her head. "I've a few days to go until the danger is past. If thou might'st extent thy hand once more, though..." She paused, clearly calculating the logistics of the positioning in her head.

A small clearing of the throat from Csevet, the noise as familiar to Maia as the sound of his own breath, suggested his secretary and love's pinpointing of a solution. "Maia, if wouldst lie down beside me..."

Some moments and arranging of pillows later, interspersed with multitudes of kisses and caresses that left him more breathless than the minutes of anticipation with Csevet alone, and Maia found himself positioned between wife and lover, Csevet's cock cradled between his thighs as his was between those of his wife. More easily, now, he slid a finger into the cleft of her mound to tease the small protrusion there with two fingers, smiling into the white nimbus of her hair at her murmurs and cries. Entirely consumed by the focus on her enjoyment, he gasped in pleasure as she began to grind back against him, the skin of her legs like velvet along his shaft, mingled sweat and the sweet, musky liquor of her sex making it glide as smoothly as if he had been inside her in sooth. Behind him, a sheen of sweat had also begun to form between his back and Csevet's stomach, and between his own thighs where Csevet's shaft brushed the underside of his stones with every thrust. One pale, ink-stained hand rested on the curve of Csethiro's hip to anchor the three of them together, his thumb gently stroking the curve of her thick-muscled thews.

Caught between them, hands and skin and breath surrounding him like a cocoon of pleasure, loins throbbing with an intensity that was near pain, it was moments before Maia's climax was wrenched from him with a guttural groan that seemed to only spur on his two loves. Both their movements grew the more eager and frantic until he felt the sticky eruption of Csevet's seed over his thighs, felt Csethiro shudder around his fingers, then cease, then shudder once again for what might have been nearly a minute on the softly-ticking clock in the corner. He was slow to come back to himself, vaguely aware of two pairs of arms still around him, hands entwined with occasional caresses of each others' fingers, of the stretch of his chest they rested upon. "Perhaps I haven’t a younger man's stamina any longer," he murmured through the sleepy bliss of completion.

"Let us attend to thee ere thou sleep'st, at the least," Csethiro replied, kissing the back of Csevet's palm before letting it go to reach for the basin at the side of the bed.

Csevet, the while, drew Maia back into his arms, draping one arm over his chest. "We can only hope," he murmured in Maia's ear, "the first holiday we have managed to arrange for His Serenity in five years has proven satisfactory thus far."

Settling back against Csevet's chest with a satisfied sigh, Maia nodded happily.


	3. Year XXXII

The cloud-dimmed sunlight of early morning filled the Alcethmeret halls with only the suggestion of warmth, the warmth only present near the banked morning fires burning behind myriad closed doors. Even under multiple layers of wool and silk, Csevet could not help but shiver, walking faster both to warm himself and to keep pace with the figure who had strode a step forward and to his side since their long-ago arrival at court. "The refusal of our northern neighbors to wait upon the whims of an Emperor," he finished, "is inconvenient but perhaps not unexpected."

“Is there any possible way that the morning personal audiences might be postponed, in that case? Or, indeed, the herdsmens’ audience?” he way Maia’s arms wrapped around his chest suggested that he felt the cold as well. The morning robe of nazhcreis fur that covered him neck to ankles seemed to little alleviate it, although its thick black waves set off the silver fall of his newly-braided hair beautifully.

“Not without a great deal of rearranging, I fear,” Csevet replied. “To reschedule the personal audiences and even the Witnesses would be simple enough, but as far back as the trader’s guild petition was filed I would be loath to renege, particularly considering the delicacy of all current northern relations.”

“If they might be given priority, however,” Maia continued, “would it be possible to speed through the herd tariffs with all due speed before bringing the personal audience-seekers to bear, followed by Parliament?”

“Wilt not be dissuaded from Parliament this day?” Csevet replied, smile broadening despite himself.

“Surely,” Maia said with an answering smile, “thou know’st the answer after all this time.”

“Well, now that we have wrangled them and the Worker’s Union into one place I could hardly advise thee to let the opportunity pass us by.” The breakfast room had, at least, been equipped with a brazier, Csevet noted with satisfaction as they entered. Hot rice porridge with chopped eggs and herbs gently steamed between an urn of tea and a stack of correspondence conveyed there by Senior Undersecretary Haleth alongside the food. Taking his usual place opposite the table from the Emperor, Csevet accepted a cup of tea from Lio, youngest work-ready member of the Imperial household, before pulling on the lenses he had begun to require for close writing. "So we have the duration of breakfast to decide what to do regarding the conflict of Parliament and the state visit. Much as I know the importance of the workers' concerns, I can see no way to postpone the decision any longer, an art to make the state visit ere the year is out."

Maia met his gaze with the mild but entirely flat affect that Csevet had long since come to think of as a thicker wall than those that bordered the Untheileneise Court. “I hope dost not mean to join the voices clamoring to distract me from the Worker's Guild issues with overtures to Barizhan.”

“As I am neither a factory magnate nor a member of the House of Blood, I have nothing to gain from urging thee away from worker's demands,” Csevet replied dryly. He accepted the customary portion of food that Maia had inevitably pressed upon him since their earliest days of correspondences over breakfast, taking a token bite of porridge before continuing. "I do, however, feel the need to remind thee that no matter how much it may have come to feel like a routine visit with occasionally disagreeable relatives, the neglect of overt and immediate rapport with Barizhan would destroy a great deal of what hast worked for over the past thirty years. Even if thy nobility’s only regard for such diplomacy is in relation to suffering factory workers."

"I was certainly not advocating cancelling the Barizhan journey entirely. Still, to leave the country having drawn out the Parliamentary session for a week would be madness, particularly without an official disbandment. If the negotiations are disrupted at this point, leaving a year or more for public opinion to swing contrary to the factory laborers once again..."

Csevet paused, lowering his pen slowly toward the table. "There is another option either of us had yet considered, an we were to take some moderate risk, to allow both the state visit and thy continued presence here."

Maia's ears lifted with interest and tentative hope, clearly reading Csevet's expression like an ornamental plaque. "Csethiro?"

"An it were anyone besides Bari'var we would forbear, or at least have her remain to deal with Parliament insofar as such a thing would be possible," Csevet replied, the pieces falling quickly into place as he spoke. "'Twould take a great deal of eloquence from thee regarding thy respect for his station and masculinity, but considering the genuine esteem he seems to have gained for her in prior years I feel confident that he might be persuaded. Particularly if Idro were to accompany her, in the interest of her political education."

"I admit I had considered such a thing." Maia stirred his tea with thoughtful purpose, the distant intensity of his expression one that Csevet had wished time and time again that he had the artistic talent to capture in paint, or even in light and ink as the Empress might with her inscrutable array of daguerreotype equipment. "Considering she has been by my side for every meeting with him since Mara was born, to simply remove mine own presence from the proceedings... Perhaps she might even convince him to spar with her this time.”

Tearing his mind away from the thought of Csethiro dressed in the fencing uniform that clung to her every lithe curve, wooden blade at the throat of a goblin half again her size, Csevet nodded. “Lio, please have a message sent to Csethiro Zhasan to meet us for luncheon at noon exactly to discuss the upcoming Barizhan visit. We believe she is staying in the zhasan’s apartments this morn and ought not to be disturbed.” _Particularly if that pretty edocharo hasn't yet left the Zhasan's bed,_ he forbore to add, nonetheless meeting Maia's eyes for another shared smile.

“Still, as thou say'st, a prior missive regarding our respectful intentions could only help,” Maia replied as the girl hurriedly exited the room for the nearest pneumatic station.

"And if all else fails," Csevet replied, "a tactful reminder of our possession of potential hostages in the form of thy late grandfather's military legacy in the Ethuveraz would hardly hurt."

Maia blinked, looking slightly alarmed. "Apart from the use of such a threat to begin with, would the three Untheileneise eshpeks truly be enough to provide meaningful incentive?"

"A jest. Mainly." Csevet withdraw the filigree pocket watch, a finer thing than he had ever expected to earn in years of service let alone be given as a token of devotion one Winternight. His eyes lingered briefly on the daguerreotype likeness of his lord and love set within the inner lid before consulting the timepiece. “An we devote a total of one and one half minutes to each of these letters after I send a pneumatic requesting the Aveise delegation meet with us early, we should be able to achieve this.”

“I have the utmost faith in our combined capabilities,” Maia replied with a smile, brushing his fingers over the back of Csevet's hand. It was the most they allowed themselves outside the Imperial bedchambers, even with the open secret of their love provoking the odd ribald cartoon, even with their only company that of the First Nohecharei who had seen far more at far greater length. Still, he had his own manners of showing such affection.

"Serenity," Csevet replied. _My love_ , both of them heard.


End file.
